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RADICAN'S TAKE
VIP - RADICAN: Solving TNA's Golden Riddle and WWE's Talent Poll Runs Dry (PWTorch Newsletter #995) Oct 22, 2007 - 5:52:01 PM
Radican's Focus
By Sean Radican, Torch columnist
Original Headline: ROH Analysis - Driven PPV, Little Things, Building for Future
Originally Published: October 27, 2007
PWTorch Newsletter #995
Why hasn't TNA been able to noticeably increase their PPV and television audience? That's the golden riddle. On Impact, viewers are reminded that it's all about the ratings. If that's the case, why doesn't TNA put up a graphic each week charting the ratings for the past three months? I'd imagine said graphic would resemble a straight line going out from the 1.0 on the left hand side of the chart.
TNA has found their television audience. They are loyal. They show up on Thursday night each week. Sure the rating goes slightly up or down some weeks, but what I have dubbed the "1.0 demographic" has even braved the storm and is now watching two hours of Impact.
Wrestling fans, where the heck are the rest of you on Thursday nights? Heck, Dixie Carter and Jeff Jarrett have checked off just about everything on their list of excuses of why the company isn't making money, although there's no truth to the rumor that at the party Dixie Carter hosted after the first two hour Impact taping there was a big cake with "Here's To Monday Night" written across the surface.
Watching Impact doesn't give wrestling fans anything different or better than they get on WWE's Raw, Smackdown, or ECW. Want to see Kurt Angle doing a poor imitation of the heel character he portrayed in the WWE? Look no further than Impact. On a recent edition of Impact, Angle said this to Kevin Nash as he drove away from the Impact Zone, "Kevin, I'll buy you some porn" in hopes said porn would convince Nash to be his friend again.
Kurt Angle [artist Grant Gould (c) PWTorch]
What incentive does TNA give to wrestling fans to watch their product? They don't offer gifts of pornography a la Angle to Nash. The main reason the "1.0 demographic" hasn't grown is because on any given week wrestling fans can turn on Impact and realize it's nothing more than a reunion from the "Thunder" and "Attitude" era with poor booking. The Oct. 18 edition of Impact featured Dustin Runnels licking a rat, a sitdown interview with Disco Inferno and Mike Tenay, two men eliminated from the "Fight For the Right" tournament because they were attacked by Team 3D, Don West screaming, "He's licking that rat," babyfaces cutting heel promos out of nowhere (Kaz and Chris Harris), Don West screaming, "There's no telling what the rat's doing in there" after Black Reign put a bag with a rat in it over Abyss's head," and a replay of Awesome Kong's wardrobe malfunction at "Bound For Glory" complete with blurring effects.
It's all about ratings!
And then there's the PPV audience. The 20,000 people give or take several thousand each month that feel compelled to fork out $30. Yes, if you are a charter member of the PPV viewing audience, TNA hasn't forgotten about you. Imagine yourself watching TNA's No Surrender PPV in September (no, really). You see Jay Lethal defeat Kurt Angle clean for the X Division Title (seriously, I'm not kidding). Later in the show Lethal gets tossed out of the ring like a jobber by Samoa Joe. That's not cool, but you still saw him beat Angle clean. Perhaps you even feel the quality of that match against Kurt Angle made the show worth your money. Thursday comes and you tune into the very next edition of Impact. Jay Lethal loses to Christopher Daniels clean and what you saw at No Surrender doesn't seem so special anymore.
At "Bound For Glory" on Oct. 14, Samoa Joe became the first person to defeat Christian when he forced him to tap to a rear naked choke. This was one of the better matches on the PPV, but what did TNA do as a follow-up? They gave away the rematch for free on Impact. Not only that, but parody booking reigned supreme once again in TNA. That's right! Nobody is better than anybody else in TNA!
That's right, if you paid $30 in part because you wanted to see the Joe-Christian match on PPV, you joined the "1.0 demographic" on Impact that got a match of comparable quality to the one Joe and Christian had at "Bound For Glory" for free. It gets better; next week on Impact, the "1.0 demographic" gets the rematch between......
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